The Mother

Night falls. He has been executed.
From Golgotha the crowd descends and winds
between the olive trees, like a slow serpent;
and mothers watch as John downhill
into the mist, with urgent words, escorts
gray, haggard Mary.

To bed he'll help her, and lie down himself,
and through his slumber hear till morning
her tossings and her sobs.
What if her son had stayed at home with her,
and carpentered and sung? What if those tears
cost more than our redemption?

The Son of God will rise, in radiance orbed;
on the third day a vision at the tomb
will meet the wives who bought the useless myrrh;
Thomas will feel the luminescent flesh;
the wind of miracles will drive men mad,
and many will be crucified.

Mary, what are to you the fantasies
of fishermen? Over your grief days skim
insensibly, and neither on the third
nor hundredth, never will he heed your call
and rise, your brown firstborn who baked mud sparrows
in the hot sun, at Nazareth.

--Vladimir Nabokov